Our go-to 5-ingredient Peanut Sauce! Made with ingredients you likely have on hand right now. Perfect for salads, spring rolls, noodle dishes, and more!
5-Ingredient Peanut Sauce
Ingredients
SAUCE
- 1/2 cup salted creamy peanut butter* (or almond butter or sunflower butter)
- 2-3 Tbsp gluten-free tamari (if not gluten-free sub soy sauce // if soy-free sub coconut aminos*)
- 1-2 Tbsp maple syrup (or other sweetener of choice)
- 1 tsp chili garlic sauce (or 1 red Thai chili, minced // or 1/4 tsp red pepper flake // adjust to preferred spice level)
- 2-3 Tbsp lime juice
- ~1/4 cup water (to thin)
Instructions
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To a medium mixing bowl add (starting with the amount at the lower end of the measurement range where applicable) peanut butter, tamari (or soy sauce or coconut aminos), maple syrup, lime juice, chili sauce (or chili or red pepper), and whisk to combine. Add water a little at a time until a thick but pourable sauce is achieved.
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Taste and adjust seasonings as needed, adding more maple syrup for sweetness, chili garlic sauce (or red chili or red pepper) for heat, lime juice for acidity, or tamari for saltiness. If your sauce has become too thin, add more nut butter. If it’s too thick, thin with more water. For a fun flavor twist, add some fresh grated ginger to taste.
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Perfect for salads, spring rolls, noodle dishes, and more! Pairings linked above. Store leftovers covered in the refrigerator up to 1 week.
Notes
*The best peanut butter to use is made with just peanuts and salt (no other additives). Our favorite brand currently is Wild Friends.
*If subbing coconut aminos know that it isn’t as pungent or salty a flavor as tamari and soy sauce. So you may need to add a bit more than the recommended amount. Season to taste.
*Nutrition information is a rough estimate calculated with the lesser amount of the tamari, maple syrup, and lime juice.
*The above photos show examples of sauce made with peanut butter, cashew butter, and sunflower butter.
Nutrition Per Serving (1 of 4)
- Calories: 223
- Fat: 16g
- Saturated fat: 3g
- Polyunsaturated fat: 4.51g
- Monounsaturated fat: 8g
- Sodium: 456mg
- Potassium: 24mg
- Carbohydrates: 11.7g
- Fiber: 2.2g
- Sugar: 5.1g
- Protein: 10.1g
- Vitamin A: 4.19IU
- Vitamin C: 2.44mg
- Calcium: 38.06mg
- Iron: 1.14mg
I made this tonight…I’ve made several different peanut sauces over the last month or so and this one…..THIS ONE RIGHT HERE……Perfect!!!!!!!!!! Perfect balance of salty with sweet and tang. All the other ones I’ve made up until today were too salty from the tamari. This is perfection and will be my go to forever more because my family is always craving Thai style dishes and I need quick and this is quick and tasty and amazing and perfect!! Thank you! And I love your blog, my go to for quick delicious recipes without a million ingredients and stuff I usually have on hand! :)
Whoop! Thanks so much for your kind words and lovely review, Martina! xo
I absolutely love this recipe! I made peanut sauce for the first time in my life today, and I’ll stick to this recipe! It tastes amazing, I could just eat it on its own. I added a little garlic salt since I had only red chili sauce, without garlic in it. And I used coconut aminos.
Next time, I think I will use less sweetener (I used about 1 Tbsp honey), it’s a bit too sweet for me. But I will be making it again soon, for sure.
Thank you for sharing your recipe!
Thanks for sharing, Lili!
One of the best recipes for peanut sauce, I served it with veggie and chicken wraps. You do have to taste to adjust it, however the basics are all covered, its foolproof. Give it a chance, you’ll fall on this for many recipes.
Yay! Thanks for sharing, Fer! xo
“”5 Ingredient Peanut Sauce!”
**6 ingredients**
Nevertheless, pretty good!
We don’t count water as an ingredient.
To those who live in Africa, water is an ingredient, and a rather scarce one.
That’s a great point. Sorry if we’ve made it sound like water is easy to access for everyone. It’s just something we haven’t counted as an ingredient since the beginning.
What are some other peanut butter brands you recommend to get that smooth, creamy consistency? I seem to always struggle in getting my peanut butter in a nice liquid state to dip things in.
Hi Jackie, we love the creamy texture of this brand. Hope that helps!
Tonight I had a craving for noodles, broccoli, and peanut sauce, however, I had thrown out my store bought peanut sauce a while ago after reading the ingredients and being appalled! I found this simple recipe and surprisingly, I had all the ingredients on hand. It really hit the spot. I used coconut aminos in mine. Next time I might try honey instead of maple syrup and chili sauce instead of red pepper flakes to get it a little spicier! So much room for variations. Can’t wait to play around with it some more!
Lovely! Thanks for sharing, Lisa. Next time would you mind leaving a rating with your review? It’d be super helpful for us and other readers!
Do you have to use Lime juice?
The lime juice is an important ingredient in this recipe. If you are wanting to replace it with something else, rice vinegar might work- though we haven’t tried it and cannot guarantee results! Hope that helps!
Pretty good for easy peanut sauce! I couldn’t imagine adding water to something like this, so I added coconut milk instead, and it was nice and creamy, with more flavor! (Totally recommend sub-ing coconut milk if you havr it on hand). I also threw in a little ginger and coriander to make it taste a bit more Thai. :)
I made this in roughly the same quantities, but substituted rice wine vinegar for lime juice, honey for maple syrup, and sriracha for the chili sauce (to avoid going shopping!). Added a little bit of tamarind puree and a few drops of sesame oil. I used crunchy 100% peanut butter. It was so delicious with fried tofu, rice vermicelli and salad.
I made this to go with lettuce wraps that I took to a potluck, and it was awesome! Someone had a peanut allergy, so I used almond butter, which I find less flavorful than peanut butter. I ended up doubling the garlic-chili paste and using all three tablespoons of lime juice—but it worked great.
Drop the mic, I will never buy peanut sauce again! I made it with coconut amino (garlic sauce), maple syrup, ginger puree, lime juice, creamy peanut butter, water, and sriracha chili sauce. Amazing! Thanks so much for the recipe, totally in love!
So kind, Rebecca! Thanks so much for sharing xo
Superb!!! I will be making the all the time. I am working on clean eating right now and this fits right in with what I want to do! It tastes GREAT!!
Great recipe. I added a little olive oil and coconut water, which added a lightness. Loved the result. Used it on a vegetable stir fry with cauliflower rice. Everyone raved.
Love this recipe and have used it a ton already! I was just wondering, for storing, do you recommend keeping it in the fridge? And if so, how do you go about getting back the consistency? Is the microwave fine? Thanks!
Hi Aly, Storing covered in the fridge works well. If it becomes too thick or chunky, you can stir in a little warm water and whisk to get it smooth again. Hope that helps!
Thank you!
Sooooo good. I was being lazy and microwaved it. I only had chunky peanut butter which I actually liked the chunks of peanuts in it, Coconut aminos, and I used sriracha sauce for the chili pepper. I absolutely love it. I travel a lot and have grown to love and use peanut sauce in about everything. Thinking of it on vanilla ice cream too lol. This took me 2 minutes to make. Then added to shredded baked chicken. I’ve been craving peanut sauce and glad I found this recipe. Its in mmyt permanent use all the time recipes now
Just made to go along with vegan pad thai and the Thai yellow mango Curry :) It’s delicious and I know will be perfect with the pad thai tonight
Most yummy peanut sauce. I made this today and absolutely loved it. Thanks I can always count on your recipes.
I’ve purchased bottled peanut sauce, and there’s no comparison! This is great! But I tripled the recipe, and there’s no way I’ll eat it all in a week! Can it be frozen, or bottled in some method where it can last, like store-bought?
A new favorite! Really truly yummy!
Yay! Thanks for sharing, Allie!
Wow! This is so much easier and waaaaay tastier than other peanut sauce recipes I’ve tried. This is my new go-to. Fabulous.
Made this tonight when our carry out was missing sauce for spring rolls. It’s great, better than what I would have received with the order, and super easy to make! I used agave nectar as the sweetener.
Easy and fast and good!
I like a spoonful on warm brown rice with a dash of soy sauce.
I have sauce left over – can it be frozen?
We don’t recommend freezing it, Ruby but you can store leftovers covered in the refrigerator up to 1 week!
What dish the first picture! It looks delish.
Hi Ellie! That is our Blissed-Out Rainbow Thai Salad! :D
Five stars for this quick peanut sauce. I just “dump” everything in a small food processor and that’s it! Wonderful on any kind of cabbage, kale, brussel sprout salad. If you go to Trader Joe’s it is fantastic on their “Cruciferous Crunch collection” with added grated carrot, Persian cucumbers and diced apple. Sometimes, particularly if I am using it on cooked tempeh or tofu or on stir fry, I add some grated ginger and minced garlic.
How many grams of peanut butter and how many mls of water is that?
Hi Ethel! That should be about 133g of peanut butter and 59 ml of water. Hope this helps!
You can switch between US & metric under the Ingredients title.. I just made the sauce. Tastes great even when I added a tablespoon of tahini paste by mistake !
Made it, so yummy! Put it on rice, roasted veggies, and baked tofu. Instead of chili garlic sauce (my partner doesn’t do spicy!), we minced a clove of garlic, and added some fresh shredded ginger and tumeric for added flavor. Also added in like 1/2 tsp miso since we did the coconut aminos (see note). Great base recipe!